Thoughts on a Kitchen Journal
This article is a little different than normal. I’m going to share a journey I went on or was sent on because I’m incapable of not jumping headfirst into anything about the home, or ignoring anything that includes the word journal.
A few weeks back as my copy-editor/cousin Sarah was getting ready for her wedding, and subsequently moving from being a maid to a matron and taking over the management of her own home, we were talking and she mentioned getting ready to set up a kitchen journal. “OOOOOOH, what’s that?” I asked in my best Buddy the Elf impression.
I wasn’t necessarily interested in one for myself, because the Good Lord knows I don’t need anything else to keep up with, but I was intrigued by the idea. We talked for a bit and she mentioned recipes and brain dumps. I have a pretty good brain dump system right now and use three cookbooks almost exclusively, so again, I didn’t need one. But just like I read books and tell y’all about them, I figured I could learn about this and share it for any who might be interested.
Pinterest failed me. Normally, if I’m curious about something about the home, I start on Pinterest because it tends to lead me to blogs that deal with that idea and shows me pictures so I can get a handle on things. All I got were a bunch of recipe card printables. (I’ve found that Pinterest is being less and less helpful these days. I feel like I can never see what I want to see.) I wanted to explore what different women did with their kitchen journals, not see cute or hideous recipe cards. Again, I didn’t want a kitchen journal, but I love homemaking and will willingly explore the many different ways it’s managed.
So, what the heck is a kitchen journal?
With Pinterest being unhelpful, I turned to my not-so-favorite source of quick information, YouTube. There I found this cute, older-than-me Texas lady with all these videos about her kitchen management and the system she uses. The videos are long and she’s one of those lovely and hysterical women who print off internet articles. She’s extremely into nutritional eating and cooking from scratch, which I love, but immediately had to start filtering her through my health limitations. She does talk about starting small and taking a year or more to convert your kitchen, which I found encouraging.
ANYWAY!!!
A kitchen journal has two parts, as I understand it:
1) A systematic approach
● Shopping lists
● Menu and meal planning
● Pantry management
● Recipes
2) Thoughts and experiences
● Things to research
● Recipe notes
● Notes on family needs
As I watched this far more experienced and comforting Texas mom talk about her kitchen journal, I realized I have a large majority of the elements of a kitchen journal already. I have them…scattered all over. Cooking notes are in my cookbooks, haphazardly recorded, recipes are on paper (loosely) or Pinterest, or cookbooks, pantry inventory is in my head, meal planning is in a datebook, meal lists are on my computer, and my shopping list is on scratch paper. Everything is scattered about in my brain, an untrustworthy location. And this, this is why women have kitchen journals. They gather those scattered things and put them in one spot where they can be found easily.
Now, I tend to get very excited about something new, especially if it involves journals, paper, pens, and maybe stickers. Here’s my money, please take it. Office supplies. Man, I’m a sucker for office supplies. I’m trying desperately, this time, not to just buy something, but to think about what I would want in my kitchen journal. How do I pull everything together in as simplified a manner as possible? My Texas lady has a free starting point. I got her pantry inventory and started thinking, watching myself, and making notes. I didn’t want to just create a system and buy a bunch of stuff only to realize I’ve created a job for myself that I can’t keep up with.
The first helpful thing I gleaned from my ‘slow down and pay attention to your actual workflow’ was realizing I wanted my shopping list and my menu in the same thing. I wanted to be able to take both the menu and the shopping list to the store at the same time. This way, when the store doesn’t have something I need, I can remember what meal it goes with and make a suitable substation. (Again, my brain isn't to be trusted.) If I want something that is both what does it look like? Is this a big 3 ring binder with my meal plan, grocery list, pantry inventory, and recipes? (I’m already tired.) Or, is this a small moleskin journal? What is available already designed for this exact use?
As I watched my workflow and asked myself questions, I realized the issue I wanted to address was the haphazard mess that is my kitchen’s paperwork. I don’t have a purposed and controlled tool, I have chaos. My goal became to make a contained, useful, and simple kitchen journal that pulled everything into one location. (This will require some playtesting and tweaking as I go along.)
So, some things I’ve learned as I’ve spiraled down the rabbit hole of Kitchen Journals:
● Everyone has a kitchen journal. If you are in charge of your kitchen you have one. It may be all in your head, but it’s there. It may be scraps of things, but it’s there.
● What appeals to me is having things better organized and in one location with the ability to keep the grocery list and menu together and easily transportable.
● There will be things that have to be periodically updated, but a pantry inventory isn’t necessary. (Something my dear friend Lauren pointed out.) Good thing the one I downloaded was free.
● Moving from cookbooks to scraps of paper to Pinterest can be simplified if I’ll take a bit of time to get organized.
My first rough draft of a Kitchen Journal ended up looking like this:
A 3 ring binder I wasn’t using with some dividers and pockets already inside. I had some plastic sheet covers already on hand. I want this to be classy and clean, so I bought some black filler paper to slip between recipes to make everything match. I added a few stickers to make me happy. From Etsy, I ordered a booklet that has the menu on one side of the page and the shopping list on the other.
In my binder, I have the article I wrote on cooking to remind me of what I’m doing and why. I have my master list of dinners for quick reference when I’m meal planning, to be updated maybe twice a year. I have our back stock inventory where I can mark it up as I’m building it and then periodically update the computer version. This way I don’t have to drag a bunch of can goods to my computer and then out to my storage area. I can mark them as I unpack them from the store and then put them up.
Next, I have any recipes that I’ve created or regularly use off Pinterest. I love having them in plastic covers because I can just take them out and use them without them getting dirty. Last, I have the pockets to store different things that are in process, or interest, or what have you. I also have a small journal to make recipe experiment notes in or do kitchen-related brain dumps.
I did find that while lugging around a 3 ring binder on my shopping day sounded terrible, the small journal I have for my meal/shopping list is too flimsy. It won’t sit up on its own. I found this awesome leather cover for it and I’m so happy.
I keep the cookbooks, journal, and meal planner on the top of my fridge. Each day I get them out and review what the food needs are for the day. I have found that leaving them out all day is very helpful because it seems like I’m always looking at my menu and working on a meal. When I finish at the end of the day, I put everything back on the fridge.
I am not interested in having a pantry inventory or a ton of loose leaf recipes. A pantry inventory seems like a huge and unwieldy job that requires constant maintenance. If you manage it, more power to you, but it seems beyond me at this time. I’m going to visually review as I do my meal planning and live with my margin of error for duplication or missing something. Since I largely cook from three cookbooks, I don’t need a bunch of recipes on hand at all times, and since I can’t eat lots of sugar and white flour I can’t use many tried and true older recipes. So, only a handful of recipes that are just in my Kitchen Journal seem to work best. I love feeling like I’m no longer scattered about trying to remember where I last saw a particular recipe or going from cookbook to scratch paper to computer every time I sit down to plan out the week’s worth of food.
I hope you noticed that I talked with several women about this, both Sarah and Lauren, as well as going online and listening to an older women. I find it to be refreshing and helpful to talk to other women about how they manage their homes. Home is both order and chaos, both structure and flexibility. It helps to talk with fellow sisters who are all in on this gig when you’re trying to balance between these elements.
You have a kitchen journal. It may not be organized or even visible, but if you manage food in your home you have one. Now, you get to think about whether you need to organize it or not. You’re welcome. ☺
